


Undeserved Stripes

by JupiterIsaJellyfish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have far too much medical knowledge to be this inaccurate about shock symptoms, Kindaaa, Mentions of Blood, Post-Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, accidental cutting, my lovely beta reader looked me in the eye and said "ok that was really angsty"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 07:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14131143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JupiterIsaJellyfish/pseuds/JupiterIsaJellyfish
Summary: The mice have been watching over the paladins while they sleep for some time now. The night before everyone sets out on their separate missions to complete the teludav, Plachu notices that something is wrong with Red's paladin. He does the only thing he can think to do and goes to fetch the princess.





	Undeserved Stripes

Plachu sprinted through the Castle vents on all fours, greatly disturbed. Princess Allura had asked him and his fellow mice to keep an eye on the paladins as the stress of their mission intensified several cycles ago. They had collectively decided to observe all the bipeds in the Castle of Lions during the sleeping hours just in case. Because there were only four of them, they roamed the vents independently during the pretend nights, going from room to room to ensure that everyone slept well and roamers returned within the varga. They watched for a bit, then moved on. 

Plachu had been about to leave the vent over the Red Paladin’s room when a sharp noise caught his ear. The Red Paladin was facing away from the vent, and was curled up rather tightly. Plachu had peered into the room and listened carefully. After several moments, a pained croak escaped the paladin. Several more moments passed, and he gave another, more labored gasp. Plachu watched in curious anxiety for almost a dobash and realized that the paladin’s breathing had become limited to these few, struggled gasps. By the time Plachu resolved to get help, the paladin was shaking. 

Now Plachu ran down the arteries of the ship, trying to decide who to go to for help. He knew that the Black Paladin would be the best, but only ten dobashes ago he had heard from Platt that he was finally getting restful sleep. That was too rare to interrupt, even in this emergency. The advisor was out too, since he spent the down hours inspecting the halls and was always an anomaly to find. Older Alteans eventually stopped needing sleep cycles, something conducive to hard work but not predictability. Even if he enlisted the help of the other mice it might take too long.   
Plachu abandoned the idea of fetching one of the new purple bipeds immediately; they were too new and looked too mean.

Plachu considered getting one of the other paladins, but Green and Yellow didn't understand him, and Blue was impossible to wake up this late. That left the Princess, to whose room Plachu had been running towards subconsciously from the start.

Allura had been behaving strangely towards the Red paladin for the last couple of quintants. All the mice noticed this. They didn't get involved, but they knew why. They knew that she was confused, angry, that wounds which she had been ignoring had been forcibly aggravated, demanding that she deal with them swiftly and finally. Her sleep was fitful, but they knew that her quarrel was with herself and that she would sleep well again soon. 

Plachu hoped that she would put aside her struggle for the sake of her friend. Reaching the princess’s vent, Plachu leapt into her pillow. Frantically patting her forehead, he chirped desperate thoughts through their link. Allura awoke with a groggy question, inviting him to explain. As she rubbed sleep from her eyes Plachu communicated urgently “Red Paladin-wrong-help”. Allura narrowed her eyes “What do you mean? Did he do something?”   
“No-sleep-bad-help”  
The princess sighed “Plachu of course he's sleeping poorly, everyone is, why would you wake me for that?”  
“NO!-breathing-NOT-BREATHING!” The urgency in the thought intensified. Allura stiffened, eyes blown wide. In one smooth movement she scooped Plachu up into her hair and flung off her duvet, flying out the door. 

———

The discontent in Allura’s mind struggled to form a response other than the simple need to see, to understand. She had not, from the short time since her mind had seen the depths of Galra depravity firsthand, reconciled her new terrifying life with the one behind her. There, the Galra were their friends and allies. Here, they were a virus that needed an absolute antidote. That is how she had weathered the otherwise impenetrable tempest of her emotions, by easily and callously sliding from one extreme to the next. If the world of her past overlapped too comfortably with the nightmare of her present, she knew that her despairing sadness could swallow and crush her. To be of service to her new role, she had long since resolved to hold only one absolute truth.   
Voltron must destroy the Galra.   
It was a simple mantra that kept her sane. Keith was a living paradox to that truth. And now he was choking. 

They reached Keith’s room far too quickly, but hopefully not too late. A blip and a swish was all she registered before gliding over to where Keith lay prone on the bed. As she approached he sucked in a cracked breath. Allura sat down stoically at the foot of the bed and reached out to tap his shoulder. 

As soon as she touched him she knew something was terribly wrong. Keith’s temperature was alarmingly low and he felt clammy. When her hand made contact Keith hissed in another strangled breath and twisted away from the touch and to face her, his back to the corner of the alcove. His eyes were glazed with tears, fever, and sleep, but most distressing was that he had his knife clutched in his bare hands. Like a child with a plush toy he grasped it close to his heart, but it was out of its sheath and the blade had sliced neat lines into both of his palms. They patterned red down his shirt chest and marked the outlines of his fingers against his face. It’s sheath lay pointlessly next to him, innocently ignored.

Allura realized three things in as many ticks. First, Keith was likely in shock from blood loss. Second, that blood loss had aggravated a fever. Lastly, by the unfocused gleam in his eye, he was deep within a nightmare, whether brought on by the combined shock and fever or by some cosmic coincidence. 

“Keith,” she whispered “give me the knife”.

Keith didn't respond at first, his blank stare seemed to pass straight through her. Allura made a slow movement towards the knife, but before she could reach it Keith jumped suddenly as if realizing she was there for the first time. “What? Allura…” Keith shook himself and renewed his shivering “Allura, I’m sorry”.  
“Never mind that, give me the knife Keith” Allura responded primly, anxious to get him in a pod and be done with this.   
To her surprise, or maybe not, Keith instead shook his head, his mop of dark hair covering his eyes. (Honestly, all of the paladins could use a haircut.)  
Allura was beginning to lose her patience, “Keith, give me the knife, I'm taking you to a pod”.  
Allura's eyes widened as Keith reeled back and slowly ducked his head, choking back sobs.   
“No, p-please, n-no”. 

Allura granted herself a paltry half tick to re-evaluate. Keith had always had a quiet dignity to him, which up until a few days ago had endeared him to her as an ingredient in an excellent paladin. When he had returned with Kolivan and his companions it had become a source of great frustration. It simultaneously prevented her from finding solid fault with him and separating him from the stone faced nobility all Galra seemed to share. 

What she had done to shatter that consistent aura was beyond her this early in the morning. 

She returned to the present and opted for a different approach. “Keith,” she said softly, “you're covered in your own blood. Please let me get you to a pod”. 

Keith looked up at her, though perhaps not, his gaze still seemed to focus slightly to the left, his face stitched in tears. “My blood…” he hung his head again, mouth moving but no words emerging.   
“Yes, and I want to get you to a pod before you put yourself in danger. Please,” Allura reached out her hand, “give me the knife”. 

“No,” Keith’s voice cracked, “please, I-I’ll do anything. Any-anything! I'll stay in my room, I'll train at night, you-you won't ever have to see me again. Please- please don't send me away,” Keith drew in a painful breath, “please, they're all I ha- have”.   
Allura was struck with a vivid realization; had she specified what type of pod? Had she needed to?   
“No, Keith, you misunderstand, you need a healing pod. You've lost so much blood…” but Keith couldn't hear her anymore, the hysteria that had laced his face now blanketed his expression.   
His shaking was verging on volatile, and despite her still sleep deprived mind she grasped that Keith’s breathing had become almost non-existent. 

Plachu, who had sat silently on her shoulder for the entire exchange, suddenly sent her an urgent message to speed things up. He delicately lept off his perch and ran down her still outstretched arm, wriggling between Keith's palms to momentarily loosed his grip on the knife.   
Allura utilized Keith’s tick of confusion to grow another foot and scoop him up. Firmly cradling him she surged out of the room and down the semi-lit corridor. Keith’s breathing all but stopped, now more obvious against her chest, and his silent weeping was all that affected his otherwise slack face. 

She reached the medical bay and heaved Keith into one arm as her hands danced across the controls. A pod rose instantly from the floor and she all but slammed Keith into it, watching as his stricken face relaxed unnaturally, tear stains invisible in the hazy light. The blood on his hands and face would be removed by the sanitizing mist that filled the pod, and Allura was only just confident that she’d been fast enough to prevent scarring on his palms. 

As the pod sank back down into the floor Allura’s knees subconsciously followed it. She surprised herself when her cheek reached the floor. Her pure exhaustion finally catching up with her, and she struggled to convince herself to get up and return to her room. For the moment though she just let the cool floor leech the stress from her cloudy head. Blankly she realized that she would need a change of clothes, as Keith’s slack hands and given her nightgown more that one crimson stripe.

After a mild eternity, Allura felt a tiny paw against her upturned cheek. Plachu had found her after racing on his tiny legs through the vents and hallways, and informed her that it was still far too early for her to stay here. She resigned herself to standing, plucking Plachu up from the floor and gently placing him in her hair. She glanced at the monitor and saw that Keith was estimated to awaken in two varga. There were still five varga until the Castle would awaken, but she had no notions of waiting for Keith. She cast one more look at the circle in the floor that hid Keith’s pod before turning to the door.

She returned to her room, quickly changed and cast the ruined nightgown in the laundry shoot. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow, Plachu’s absence failing to concern her; he had returned to his rounds, and would sleep after breakfast. 

———

The next morning unfolded as if nothing had happened. Everyone gathered on the bridge to review their separate missions, no one the wiser to Keith’s inexplicable morning in the med bay. Allura resumed her self imposed distaste for his existence and hoped that he remembered nothing. Keith briefly considered recounting his strange nightmare and subsequent awakening from a pod to Shiro, but kept quiet. The nightmare itself had stemmed from a recurring one, although the ending had been very different. He prayed that it was a sign that he was becoming used to this whole debacle, that maybe he could find a new normal in which to operate. Not now perhaps, but someday. 

Allura’s empty gaze still hurt, and as he boarded the Yellow Lion he let it sting for a moment. It would always hurt. After he’d climbed behind Hunk he took a deep breath, and grounded himself in the fact that despite everything, he was here, he had a job to do, and that he would not be sent away.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeaaahhh so Keith's suffering brings me a fascinating bouquet of joy and utter misery. I really didn't intend for this to be any flavor of dark or upsetting so I hope you found some enjoyment in this despite being a bit out of touch with characterization :0


End file.
